


Dancing With A Ball And Chain

by spockandawe



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/M, Forced Bonding, Infection, Memory Alteration, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Virus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 06:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11594730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: When you aren’t looking for him yourself, Vigilem looks for you. Not in any sort of urgent way, just lazily picking over the city, idly leafing through the space. He doesn’t have a body unless he wants to, but hispresencepermeates every corner of the city, and the force of his attention feels like a constant pressure against your wings. You aren’t even certain if he’s in the city, or if heisthe city. You’d rather believe he’s here, and there’s some space that’s isn’t him where you can exist.It’s completely unexpected when one… day? Week? You feel the pressure of Vigilem’s attention lift.Your first thought is that it’s a trap. Your second, worn-out thought is that why would that matter, because nothing matters anymore. The nonexistence of time is melting your processor, anything that changes this suffocating, exhaustingsamenessis something you’re desperate for.





	Dancing With A Ball And Chain

**Author's Note:**

> All the warnings of Spotlight: Megatron apply here, so there's plenty of physical and verbal abuse, with lots of gratuitous cruelty to go with it. There's also a lot of manipulation and attempted mind control flavored content in here, in line with what Vigilem has been up to in TAAO. So just tread with care if these are things you're sensitive to.
> 
>  
> 
> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/163355349586/dancing-with-a-ball-and-chain-spockandawe-the)

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been here. It’s been— A while. You can’t figure it out any better than that. It’s impossible to tell. There’s no sunsets or people or anything you can use to mark the time. You’re never tired. Never hungry. There’s nothing but an unmoving sky and a city that shifts in in an unsettling, constant way, just barely too slow enough for you to see it happening. Every time you venture out, the buildings and streets have changed around you, and you can’t escape the feeling that they’re waiting for you to look away so they can change again.

You’re never tired, but you’re exhausted. The time smears out behind you in an indistinguishable blur, where you can barely remember it even beginning, and there’s no end in sight. Though—There is one other person. Perhaps you could mark time by how often you get tired of hiding from Vigilem and seek him out to confront him on your own. But what are those intervals? Hours? Days? It feels like your processor is shutting down on you with how hard it is to live detached from any sense of time. You’re only moving from sheer momentum and it’s almost impossible to remember why you need to keep going when all you want to do is give up and _rest._

When you aren’t looking for him yourself, Vigilem looks for you. Not in any sort of urgent way, just lazily picking over the city, idly leafing through the space. He doesn’t have a body unless he wants to, but his _presence_ permeates every corner of the city, and the force of his attention feels like a constant pressure against your wings. You aren’t even certain if he’s in the city, or if he _is_ the city. You’d rather believe he’s here, and there’s some space that’s isn’t _him_ where you can exist.

Sometimes the streets are unfamiliar (how could your mind have streets you’ve never seen? doesn’t this mean this city _has_ to be— no, you can’t afford to think about that right now). And sometimes they’re so familiar it hurts. Once you looked out a window to see the street on Caminus where you bought your first apartment. When you turned back around, the empty, nondescript room had become that apartment. Vigilem wasn’t anywhere near hunting you down, but you still ran.

Another time, you saw Metroplex’s control tower, and you wanted it to be true so badly that even though you knew better, you still flew to it and went inside. It was so much _him,_ and you thought that this was a place you could truly hold. But that was one of the only times you could see the city shifting in front of you. The room was Metroplex and not-Metroplex at the same time, and at first you could tell what you knew and was was unfamiliar. But then you were less and less certain, the room didn’t match your memories, but you were still certain it was home. You looked up at Metroplex’s brain module, hoping for the comfort of familiarity, even if it was only a memory. But when those lights ponderously spelled out **[WIND-VOICE]** , it wasn’t Metroplex speaking.

You could feel Vigilem laughing as you flew away.

Regularly—frequently?—anger wins out, and you go hunting for Vigilem. You can tell he’s _allowing_ himself to be found, and the way his condescending, _indulgent_ amusement echoes through the space never fails to infuriate you. Sometimes you’re the size of a Titan, and sometimes he’s as small as you. He’ll take on his own face, but he’ll also take on your face. Metroplex’s. Chromia’s. Starscream’s. Sometimes he’ll even act the part of the Mistress of Flame, and his mocking imitation of her distant, cold reserve is pulled directly from your memories of the day she chose to send you out seeking salvation for Caminus.

But always, if you linger, he’ll drift into a frame that blends yours and his together in an unsettling whole that shouldn’t feel so much—so much _you._ No matter how that form shifts, it always feels like a frame that could be you and him together. It feels like something you could become. You can hear the words he whispers about how you need to join with him, how he understands you like nobody else could, how he can help you if you’ll only help him, just think of what the two of you could become and achieve _together._

You know not to trust his words, but it’s so hard to ignore the way your frame tries to drift to match his. It’s worse to see his paint on your face. Even worse than that to see _his_ paint and not recognize for a long, long moment that it isn’t the paint you should be wearing. That time you smeared your own paint off your face with your bare hands, frantically, struggling to remember which way your paint curves, which way it _should_ curve—

Always, when you hunt him down, you run. You want him _gone._ This is _your mind._ Vigilem is an infection and an invasion (you try not to ask yourself how it’s different to bind a Titan’s mind away for millions of years, or to steal away control of a living Titan’s body). But when he whispers about the way he understands you and the compromises you’ve already made, the way your old ideals can’t support you anymore, the reasons you need him, the reasons you should want his help— It frightens you when you realize you want to believe him.

He never chases when you go, but always laughs as he watches you leave. He waits until you find a place to hide away and collect your strength, and begins lazily looking for you again. He tells you you’re dying. Of all the things he says, that’s the one you believe the most. Even threatening to let that happen doesn’t help you. His body is dead, and what’s left of his mind has nothing to lose by dragging you down into the grave with him. No matter how you try to fight, you can’t do any damage to him that lasts. He has you pinned. It would almost be better if there was any real urgency to his pushing, because then you might be able to believe that you had a way out.

So it’s completely unexpected when one… day? Week? You feel the pressure of Vigilem’s attention lift.

Your first thought is that it’s a trap. Your second, worn-out thought is that why would that _matter,_ because nothing matters anymore. The nonexistence of time is melting your processor, anything that changes this suffocating, exhausting sameness is something you’re desperate for.

You still move cautiously as you slip out of the building where you’ve been sheltering and take to the air. You stay low—not that you’re sure it matters, in here—and start looping over the nearby city blocks.

When you see another mech, the shock nearly knocks you out of the sky. It could be Vigilem, but this isn’t someone you recognize, it’s someone totally nondescript, just… walking down the street. When you move closer, things aren’t quite as they seem. It’s a person. Mostly. From a distance, or from the corner of your optic, it’s a person. But when you try to look at them directly, all the details slip away from you. You can’t quite make out a face, or any of the detailing on their frame.

But you’re too impatient to linger. Something here is _different,_ and you’re desperate to know what. There’s another mech on the next street, and two on the street after that. There are more and more people beneath you, and when you circle and really look at them, you can see their faces properly, they’re looking at you and reacting when you fly close. You finally land and move through the crowd on foot, just for the incredible relief of being around _people_ again, even if you know this isn’t real.

You can’t place this memory. Which should mean it must be one of Vigilem’s. But the streets and buildings are looking more completely like Iacon than any of the other dream cities have, and you’ve seen one or two mechs you can vaguely recognize from the government offices. This isn’t something you remember. And it doesn’t make sense for it to be something from Vigilem’s memory banks.

When you follow the flow of the crowd and move into a large, semi-enclosed area that reminds you of the arena at the Temple of Flame, where priests and officials will address crowds of devotees. Belatedly you realize that this _is_ a place you know, it’s just been converted into an open-air market. It looks much different when the space is packed with tables and merchandise. But if you don’t recognize it like this and Vigilem shouldn’t know about it, where is this coming from?

Your answer comes when you see Starscream standing on a raised stage at the front of the crowd. There’s something about him, some sort of sharp-edged _realness_ , that the moment you see him, you can tell that he exists. He isn’t a dream, this isn’t like the shifting memories of a city, or the half-remembered outlines of a mech you noticed in passing. This is Starscream, as himself, _here._

Immediately, you start pushing forward through the crowd. Because whatever is going on, whatever’s happening, whatever reason he has for being here, this is important. This is something _different,_ something that might break the suffocating stalemate between you and Vigilem, no matter how it happens.

He doesn’t seem to notice you. Starscream is too busy waving at the crowds and basking in the attention. Of course. He’s wearing his crown, which you’d thought he’d mostly gotten away from, because it is _completely_ unnecessary. And is that a cape? It is. He’s wearing a crown and a cape, of all the ridiculous things. What is he even doing up there?

You haven’t even gotten halfway through the crowd when he steps to the front of the stage, and lifts his arms, asking for silence. The crowd quiets quickly, though you can still hear uneasy muttering from little clustered groups of mechs wearing Autobot badges. And from groups of mechs wearing Decepticon badges. You honestly aren’t that surprised, given what you know about his history.

When Starscream begins to speak, you realize this is an _inauguration._ Oh. That’s— Well, if there had been any question about whose memory this is, that certainly settles it. You’re still too far back to hear his voice on its own, it just echoes from all sides from the speakers embedded in the columns around the perimeter of the arena. It’s—strange. He sounds like Starscream. And he sounds exactly as smug as he always does when he thinks he’s winning. But there’s this undercurrent of barely-restrained _happiness_ that’s completely different from everything you’ve seen from him.

It’s surreal. Once you’re close enough to see the way he’s smiling as he talks, you can’t look away. It’s not much of a smile, but it’s nothing like the obnoxious smirking that's all you’re used to seeing. The closer you get, the more you can tell how _real_ he is. And when he glances towards you, you think you can catch a flicker of recognition. But he doesn’t pause as he speaks to the crowd, not even once you finally manage to push your way into the very front of the crowd, right up against the edge of the stage.

He’s caught in the memory, you think. Not that you have much experience to go on, but you know how hypnotic it can be, trying to retrace familiar old steps. You remember how much you wanted to just— erase the last few years, when you saw your old apartment. You just wanted to be that person again, when everything was so much easier. It wouldn’t surprise you at all if those memories get harder to escape the more immersive they become.

And Starscream is officially ignoring all your attempts to catch his attention. The feeling of Vigilem looking for you is still finally, finally gone, so you resign yourself to waiting for this speech to be over before you really try to yank Starscream out of the memory.

You’ve just settled in to listen when you see a large mech in the crowd on the far side of the stage stir and step forward, shouldering past the mechs in his way. The mechs don’t react, don’t even seem to notice him. Who is that? He’s wearing a Decepticon badge, and you don’t really know that many Decepticons. His plating almost all dark and laced with purple biolights, which isn’t familiar at all, but you still can’t shake the feeling that you ought to recognize him.

The crowd continues not to react as the mech takes the stage in one easy step. You’re becoming more and more uneasy as he moves towards Starscream. Starscream doesn’t seem to have noticed him either, and something here is _wrong._

The surreal calm breaks when the mech grabs Starscream by the wing and throws him to the ground. You’re don’t know how to respond, because you don’t understand what’s happening. The mechs around you are reacting now. There’s restless stirring, but— Nobody seems upset. The mechs around you are shifting and whispering to each other. But they all sound somehow pleased, and all you can hear is a quiet murmur of _‘Megatron.’_

Even a cluster of Autobots beside you is nodding and smiling as Megatron advances on Starscream again. Starscream sees him now too, but he’s motionless where he is, sprawled on the ground. As Megatron slowly circles him, you can see the sharp red lines of Vigilem’s paint on his face.

“Hello, Starscream,” says Megatron.

Starscream doesn’t respond. He doesn’t look at Megatron. He doesn’t move. You don’t know what to _do._ Megatron keeps stepping around him, while Starscream refuses to look him in the face.

Megatron lets the silence stretch out, long and awkward, while he just watches Starscream. You jump when Megatron turns and kicks him, hard and vicious. _“Up.”_

Starscream still isn’t looking at him as he slowly climbs to his feet. He’s just staring down at the ground. His wings are held in low and tight, a much more obvious display than you’ve ever seen from him. This is wrong, everything about this is wrong, and you don’t understand.

“Not enough to try—and fail—to lead the Decepticons, I see. Why don’t we have a talk about how you plan to lead an entire planet.”

Starscream is still keeping his head turned away from Megatron. He’s looking almost right at you, but you don’t think he’s properly seeing anything. His voice is strained when he says, “Really? You’d like to have a chat about _that?_ ”

Megatron’s face is carefully blank. “Three years,” he says. You don’t like how pleased he sounds. “Three years you led the Decepticons. I’m sure you remember how well that went. Why don’t you tell me all about how this will be different.”

There’s no reply. Starscream puts a hand over his face, and it’s not right to see him this— _like this._ You just saw him smiling as he spoke to the crowd, and now you’re seeing him hiding. It’s wrong.

The silence stretches out longer and longer. Megatron stops where he is, next to Starscream’s shoulder, just looking at him. But he doesn’t say a word. Finally, Starscream snaps. _“Why?_ Why are you doing this?”

Megatron’s expression doesn’t change. “Why am I doing what?”

There’s a ripple of laughter from the crowd. You look around, confused, but their eyes are on the stage, and they’re smiling, nudging each other.

You can see the hand still at Starscream’s side clench before he takes his other hand from his face, and then he finally looks at Megatron. “I don’t _care._ I don’t care anymore. I don’t care that you want to humiliate me, I don’t care that you want to unleash whatever punishment you’ve got in mind—”

“Punishment?”

Starscream makes a disgusted noise and looks away again, staring off into the sky. “Whatever you want to call it.”

The satisfaction in Megatron’s voice makes you cringe. “No. Tell me. Punishment for what? Do you _deserve_ punishment?”

You flinch as Starscream grabs Megatron’s arm. Megatron’s _cannon._ As Starscream points Megatron’s cannon at his spark. _“Just do it already!”_

Your hands are locked tight on the edge of the stage. But you’re shamefully frozen. Whatever’s happening is wrong, it’s completely wrong. It’s unjust, it’s cruel, it’s unnecessary, you don’t _understand,_ and you don’t know what to _do—_

At least Megatron hasn’t fired the cannon. What can you do, how are you supposed to stop this? Starscream holds onto Megatron with both hands, keeping the cannon trained on himself. Starscream cares about nothing and nobody but himself. That’s what you learned. Perhaps not entirely true, but— mostly true. This isn’t how he’s supposed to be. This isn’t right, it’s not right, you don’t know why this is happening.

And worst of all, you can hear the crowd laughing again. Louder this time. While Starscream stands there, asking Megatron to kill him.

“Three years,” Megatron finally says. He pulls his arm out of Starscream’s hands and turns away. He looks right at you for a moment, Vigilem’s paint standing out in deep, stark red. The way he smiles at you is tight and cruel.

Starscream buries his face in his hand again. You can see the way his wings pull in tight to his body. “Yes,” he whispers.

“Three years where you crept in to fill a gap after I fell in battle. Where you did not seize power. Where you did not _earn_ power. I’m sure we all remember the many triumphs of your reign. Tell me, did you earn this position because of that glorious history, where you proved your ability to lead?”

He looks at Starscream, but there’s no answer. Starscream almost begins to speak, but cuts himself off before he can say a single word. Megatron lets the silence last just long enough to be uncomfortable as he circles Starscream again.

Megatron stops behind Starscream, looming over him. The tension in Starscream’s wings is painful to look at, though he doesn’t turn to face Megatron.

“And that’s not all,” Megatron says. “We can’t forget your other credentials. The Matrix speaks for itself, and I don’t think any of us would dare to question the judgment of a worthless little Autobot trinket. Do tell everyone less fortunate than you, was the Matrix everything you hoped it would be?

“Entire planets fell before you. You won the Decepticons victory after victory. Your many, _many_ followers granted you their complete and total respect the moment they saw you prancing around with the Matrix tethered to your neck.”

Starscream is holding himself motionless, but you can see his mouth twist for a moment before he forces his face still again.

Megatron pauses. He looks at Starscream with satisfaction, and begins circling him again. “Eons and eons of shameless treachery. Culminating in that pathetic, wretched mess. And here I find you, again, thinking yourself capable of leadership.”

It hurts to look at the way Starscream’s face is so flat. Again, he doesn’t respond in any way.

“Given your silence, it must fall to me to summarize your achievements. After a mere three years under your command, what did I find? The infrastructure and communication network of the entire Decepticon army in tatters. The army reduced to stealing scraps of energon from substandard alien sources. Begging fuel and shelter from _fleshlings._ And the proud commander of this fearsome army— Where was he? Huddled on a worthless asteroid. Watching his underlings consume and cannibalize each other.”

Megatron bends in close to Starscream’s face. Starscream looks away from him, biting his lip, his hands in fists and his wings low and tense, and it makes your spark ache to see it.

“That is what it’s like when you get what you want. And now you plan to repeat that history with an entire planet.” His mouth curls into a smile for just a moment, before he leans in even closer. “All. Hail. Starscream. You must be very proud.”

Starscream rounds on Megatron and you flinch again as he opens fire with both his guns. _“Stop, stop, stop—!”_

Megatron hits the ground right in front of you.

But Starscream doesn’t press his attack. He takes one stumbling step backwards. You hear him whisper, “Oh no.” And then he spins and runs, slipping into his alt and racing away into the sky.

Megatron takes his time climbing to his feet. He looks right at you and grins, wide and horrible. And then he turns, taking to the sky after Starscream.

You know Starscream is fast. You’ve had him chase you down before. But even with his head start, Megatron overtakes him with ease. He flies right _through_ Starscream, almost knocking him out of the air. Starscream recovers and wheels, sprinting back towards the arena and over the crowd. Megatron’s turn is lazy and unhurried, but again, he overtakes Starscream in moments. Starscream rolls and dives away from him, but Megatron still clips his wing and follows as Starscream struggles to right himself, hounding him back towards the arena.

The crowd laughs and chatters, surging this way and that, following the, the _show,_ as Megatron chases Starscream, cutting him off every time he tries to escape. No matter where Starscream tries to run, Megatron herds him back to the arena. He’s taking idle shots at Starscream when he isn’t just clipping his wings, or flying right into him, or, or trying to knock him right out of the sky— The crowd is still laughing. How can they laugh at this? You can see a fire in one of Starscream’s wings, and the crowd is still _laughing._

It only ends when Megatron crashes into Starscream one last time, and Starscream finally falls. He’s so high that the crowd has time to part beneath him. You’re close enough to see the way he slams into the ground wings-first.

You shove your way through the crowd, but Megatron lands before you can reach Starscream. Starscream is still flat on his back, with his wings dented and crumpled. The wing fire is gone. Because that part of his wing is gone. You feel sick.

You finally manage to push your way to the front of the crowd, but then you only freeze again, miserably uncertain. You still don’t know what you can even do. You remember how easily Starscream was able to deal with you and Chromia, but Megatron has done _this_ to him so effortlessly. And— You still should do something, you _need_ to do something, but you can’t think what—

Megatron sneers as he looks down at Starscream. “What were you thinking? What did you imagine would happen when you opened fire on me? You couldn’t kill me when I lay half-dead and helpless. What hope do you have _now?_ ”

“Hope?” Starscream stirs, slow and painful, and doesn’t stand. “Hope ended… long ago.”

Megatron grabs one of his shoulders, dragging him half-upright. “This isn’t _you,_ Starscream. I never expected a backbone, not from you. But viciousness, a certain sharpness, _some_ sense of self-preservation.”

He pauses, but Starscream doesn’t respond in any way. Megatron is still holding him half off the ground. Starscream still hasn’t taken any of his own weight, just hangs there as Megatron glares at him

After a moment, Megatron says, “You _want_ me to kill you.”

“Yes,” Starscream whispers.

“You really do want me to end this all. Don’t you.”

“Yes!”

Your spark twists, but Megatron doesn’t even react. He only says, “Think back on the last thing you really wanted. Remember what an utter failure _that_ was, too.”

Starscream tears himself away from Megatron’s grip, kicking him away and shooting him again as he takes to the air on just his thrusters. And Megatron hardly seems to even notice the shots. His frame still looks pristine—Vigilem’s paint isn’t even smudged—and it stands out so horribly in contrast to the wreck of Starscream’s body.

He follows Starscream up higher and higher, and— Starscream isn’t even trying to escape, not really, he’s just backing helplessly away as Megatron advances.

Megatron says, “If you meant that, you’d stand your ground and _face me._ You don’t desire oblivion. You desire _punishment.”_

Starscream has his hands raised between him and Megatron, but he doesn’t move to defend himself as Megatron draws closer. He isn’t even moving away anymore, only hovering frozen above the crowd. You can see him flinch away as Megatron reaches out, but he doesn’t resist.

“I rarely like to help others,” Megatron says, as he rests a hand on Starscream’s shoulder. “But in this case… let me be of service.”

He seizes Starscream and hurls him down out of the air before you can even take his meaning. Starscream hits the ground where he landed before and skids, almost crashing into a group of mechs across from you. Mechs scramble backwards as Megatron lands, letting the open space widen.

Starscream doesn’t quite make it to his feet before Megatron is on him again, slamming him back into the ground.

“You look like him,” Megatron snarls. You can _hear_ Starscream’s cockpit shatter as Megatron strikes him square in the chest. “You move like him. Your frame _buckles_ like his. But you aren’t Starscream, you can’t be.”

Megatron lets Starscream nearly stand before he hits him again, knocking him down almost at your feet. This is wrong, this— It’s cruelty for the sake of cruelty. It’s wrong, and you, you need to stop this, why can’t you do anything—

Starscream rolls onto his side, slowly pushing himself upright. But Megatron grabs his head in one massive hand, dragging him up to his knees. He raises one fist, and pauses, watching Starscream cringe. He says, “Starscream was pathetic. But he was never _this._ Every blow I bring upon you comes from a place of pity, you _wretch.”_

And then he hits Starscream.

It sends Starscream to the ground again, so close that you could reach out and touch him, if you could only make yourself _move._ He doesn’t even groan, just. Lies there. Megatron doesn’t advance on him this time. He only stands where he is, looming and waiting.

You can see the marks of Megatron’s fist on Starscream’s face. You want to turn away, but you can’t. For one awful moment, you lock gazes with Starscream. And then you have to tear your optics away. This needs to stop, it needs to stop, someone needs to stop this and why can’t you _move—_

When you look around at the gathered crowd, you see some faces you recognize, mechs you know. And they’re all smiling with satisfaction as they look Starscream. You feel ill. You turn to the mech beside you, laughing at Starscream, but— Not someone you recognize. That helps. He’s smiling like the others, but. You can’t just keep watching this happen.

You reach out to touch the mech’s arm, and he turns to face you. You’re still lost, because you don’t understand how anyone could be watching this and enjoying the experience, but you try, “Shouldn’t we stop them?”

The yellow mech snorts and waves a cane at you. “If you do, I’ll shove this inside your vents and fry your circuits.”

You’re shocked speechless. You can’t even react. The mech turns away, and nudges the mech standing on his other side. Distantly, you recognize Wheeljack. You can’t quite make out what they say to each other. But you can hear it when Wheeljack laughs.

All you can do is turn back towards Starscream. You feel numb out to the tips of your wings. Starscream’s optics aren’t on you anymore. Instead, he’s looking dully up at the two mechs beside you.

You flinch when Megatron moves forward. Starscream doesn’t, which is almost worse. He stands over Starscream, looming, still not saying a word. He stays there until Starscream finally moves, and slowly, painfully, climbs to his feet.

Starscream’s voice is quiet. “What is it, then? You want me to apologize? You want me to beg for my life— or for forgiveness? Is _that_ it?”

But Megatron only sneers. “You seek my forgiveness? Am I the one you’ve truly disappointed?”

“You don’t understand!”

Megatron takes a half-step closer. The way he’s smiling makes your plating crawl. “Understand what, Starscream?”

“What it was like— This is everything I’ve ever wanted!” Megatron steps closer again, and this time, Starscream backs away. “Before— I couldn’t make them obey me through respect. Or fear. Everything I’d ever hoped for, slipping through my fingers.”

Megatron is still advancing slowly on him, and Starscream moves backward at the same pace. As they slowly circle each other in the open space, you can see Starscream’s face. It’s terrible to see him like this. This hopeless distress, this _defeat,_ it’s. It’s all wrong. This isn’t what he should be. This isn’t what you’ ve ever seen from him before, and you shouldn’t be seeing it now. He should be all sharp edges and difficult and suspicious and awful, and the most frustrating person you’ve ever tried to work with. It makes your spark twist to see someone shamelessly beat him into being _this._

Starscream’s hands are raised in helpless supplication. “And after all that, I still tried— They chose me.” He looks around the crowd. More quietly, he repeats, “They _chose_ me.”

There’s silence for a moment. Megatron doesn’t respond. Starscream looks up at him, and it hurts to hear the naked despair in his voice. “What use is it telling you any of this? You don’t care, I _know_ you don’t care. But you can’t understand—” His voice cracks and his hands fall to hang at his sides. “How could you understand? When you’ve never had something you dreamed of for so long crumble before your eyes.”

Megatron is still silent. His face is blank and unreadable. Starscream watches him, and for a moment, his expression is something almost like _hope._

And then Megatron seizes Starscream and hurls him down to the ground.

Before he can rise, Megatron kneels on the small of his back and takes his face in one hand, hauling it upwards.

Megatron snarls, “I _free slaves.”_ He slams Starscream’s face into the ground so hard you flinch. “Implant ideology.” He slams Starscream’s face into the ground again. “I build them up.” Again. “I liberate cities.” _Again._

A shard of plating hits you in the pede. This time when Megatron drags Starscream up and twists his head around to look at him— You gasp out loud. Starscream’s plating is a crumpled mess. His optics flicker unevenly, he’s missing dentae, and you can see the way Megatron’s fingers are denting his helm. Around you, you hear the crowd stir and laugh at the sight.

None of that gives Megatron any pause. He leans in close and hisses, “I _topple worlds._ Eons of work. And it only took three years of sleep for you to destroy it. But you’ll _still_ tell me that you _deserve_ to lead an entire planet. Not enough for me to see a lifetime’s work destroyed, you want to destroy the entire Cybertronian race.”

He drops Starscream’s head, and steps back. “You and I have one thing in common. The person who has left both our lives in tatters… is _you.”_

Starscream slumps where he is. You can barely hear his voice when he speaks. “Then just end this.”

“No.”

Megatron moves to stand at Starscream’s shoulder, looking down at him. “Do you want to know why I keep you around? You’re a competent warrior. Your bullying and intimidation keep those below you in check. Your treachery and ambition define you. You’re the model Decepticon. The exact kind of deviant who will ensure our victory.”

He nudges Starscream in the side with his pede, but Starscream doesn’t react. “And it is the thought of you in charge, _leading,_ that keeps me alert. Watching my back. This has never been about me losing power. It is entirely about you _gaining_ it.” Megatron pauses for a moment, and then levels his cannon at Starscream’s head. “That has been your only value.”

The whine of the charging cannon is one of the worst noises you’ve ever heard. Starscream still isn’t moving. He only looks up over his shoulder into the cannon, his face blank and tired and hopeless.

Megatron lifts his arm, and fires the cannon out over the city, obliterating the corner of a nearby building.

Dully, Starscream says, “Thank y—”

“ _Do not_ thank me,” Megatron snarls. “Your own incompetence and poor judgment brought you to this point. And they are the only reason you’re still alive. Instead, _repay me._ ” He bends down over Starscream. “This all-consuming self-hatred? _Use it._ Are you tired of thinking you have the ability to wield real power, and only bringing loss after loss down on your own head? Then learn to recognize your proper place. _Under me.”_

For a moment, you expect Starscream to argue, or refuse, to cling to his pride the way he always does. But he barely hesitates before he quietly says, “Yes, Lord Megatron.”

Megatron barely waits for him to finish speaking before he turns away, addressing the crowd. Starscream drags himself to his feet and slinks over to trail after Megatron, standing behind his shoulder. You still can’t stop thinking about how wrong this is, how wrong this whole display was, nothing about this was right but you can’t—

As Megatron turns, he catches your optics for a moment and smiles, smug and satisfied. And you recognize the sharp lines of Vigilem’s face showing through in his plating.

You’re an idiot. You’re the worst kind of idiot. Not just Vigilem’s _paint_ on his face, of course not, how could you be so blind? You can see more of how Vigilem overlays Megatron’s frame, now that you’ve caught on. You should have realized, there’s no excuse. But _how—?_

Your answer is Starscream, still following along behind Megatron, his face and body still a wreck even though this is a dream, none of your frames are _real._ The memories pull you in. You already knew that. How often has Vigilem tried to catch you with memories of your past, or tempt you with tastes of his own? You thought you were so clever, figuring out his tricks, and then you let yourself get trapped the moment he started stealing from Starscream’s memories instead of yours.

Even with that knowledge, it’s still so, so difficult to force yourself into motion. You can recognize the pressure on you now. You’re part of the crowd. You need to stay _in_ the crowd. Leaving the crowd is wrong, you need to stay where you are. But you’ve been working through the pressure of Vigilem trying to influence you for— however long. Days, weeks, years, you’ve been working for it through a lifetime, and it’s not going to hold you back _now._

You wrench yourself forward into the open space where Megatron is— where _Vigilem_ is still standing. He’s still speaking to the crowd, and the words never pause. But he turns and watches you, smiling openly as he watches you advance. There’s hardly anything of Megatron showing through anymore. This is Vigilem’s face, his frame, and you’re not sure if he’s the same size he was during the memory, or if he’s slowly growing larger, drifting back to his true size.

Starscream is still lost in the memory. He looks at you, he _sees_ you, and you think he knows who you are. But he doesn’t react.

You grab him by the arm and run.

The crowd is blowing away into nothingness. All you’re running through is the faint outline of mechs and the people only exist at the edges of your vision, where you’re not quite looking at them. Starscream stumbles after you at first, until he finds his feet. You can feel the dents in his plating under your hand. Bodies aren’t real in here, he should go back to himself when he shakes himself free. But for now, you can feel the memory of that damage against your fingers.

As Starscream recovers, you think he starts to come back to himself more. You’re only a few streets away from the arena when he pulls up short and yanks his arm out of your grip. You wheel to face him, ready to shout because you _need to be hidden._ But seeing all the damage again, from this close, makes you lose your train of thought.

Starscream still pulls himself up straight with that same haughty pride you’re so used to. It’s jarring after— After what you just saw.

He says, “And what do you think you’re doing?”

“Trying to get us somewhere safe so I can figure out what you’ve even done—” You try to grab hold of his hand, but he moves just out of reach.

“I don’t think so.” He looks around, surveying the blank streets, as though it’s something interesting or useful or like it even matters at all. He turns back to you. “I’ll be making the calls. If you and I can negotiate an… _agreement,_ I may be able to see my way to facilitating your miraculous resurrection.”

You could just scream. “You’re not in control,” you hiss. “The moment you showed up in here, Vigilem had you. He was rummaging through your memories to find anything he could use, and he _had_ us.”

Starscream snorts. “A likely story.” He turns away and starts strolling idly down the street. “From the outside, I hear that it looks like you and Vigilem are both fighting for control. Where is he, then?”

You really are going to scream, just wait. And Starscream’s stupid, grating, _useless_ posturing is… what it always was. But it’s horribly uncomfortable to watch, knowing what you just saw Vigilem pull out of his memories. It’s worse to watch it with Starscream’s memory of that old damage still written all over his body.

Calm, calm. You need to resolve this before he can drag both of you into worse danger. “Starscream, look at your frame.”

He turns back around just so he can give you a scornful look. Very important. He stretches out an arm and sighs heavily before he looks down at it. Just to be sure you know what a hardship this is. But. You can see the way his face freezes when he finally takes a proper look at himself.

You can’t even bring yourself to gloat over being right. Not when you’re looking at the way his expression carefully doesn’t change as he feels out the dents and damage along his torso, or when he looks out over the wreck of his wings. You’ve never seen him look so… brittle.

You’re on edge, spending this long in the open, so close to where Vigilem was, but you still can’t feel that pressure of him looking for you. And you really, truly can’t force yourself to push Starscream right this moment. You shouldn’t have been able to see that memory. He wouldn’t have wanted you in there, and you watched the entire thing.

Finally, Starscream speaks, slow and careful, and says, “It wasn’t a dream.”

“It— was,” you hedge. “But I was there too.”

He holds himself horribly still for a long moment. Not looking at you. Then he says, “I’m afraid I’ll be going then. Enjoy however much time you have left alive.”

He turns to face away from you again, and… nothing happens. He doesn’t leave. It would almost be funny, if not for, you know. Everything else.

Starscream doesn’t make a move to look at you again, so you step up to him, edging slowly around his shoulder until you can look him in the face. He still hasn’t moved. He doesn’t move until you’ve finally made your way to standing directly in front of him, where you can look him straight in the optics.

Then, he finally says, “What have you done?”

You don’t sigh, and you don’t scream. Because you have a sinking feeling that this is much worse than Starscream making your life difficult. Your mind is racing, but you, you don’t like this. Every explanation you can think of is bad. It’s only a matter of _how_ bad.

Carefully, you ask, “Tell me, have you been patched directly into my mind?”

He waves you off. _“ Clearly._ Do try to keep up.”

You can’t even respond to that jibe. All you can do is make a despairing little noise and bury your face in your hands. “Vigilem. Starscream— Oh no.”

“What?” He’s suspicious. Of course he’s suspicious. He’s suspicious and he doesn’t trust you and he never has trusted you and he never will, and now it’s going to get him killed.

“Vigilem is an _infection._ He’s infected me, and he’s been trying to convince me to give control over to him. He wants a body, whatever body he can steal. And you’ve opened a direct connection.”

Through your fingers, you can see Starscream freeze. And then you can see him force himself into action again, even though he’s moving too stiff and unnatural. His voice is carefully casual. “Am I supposed to understand that I’m already a lost cause, then?”

You can’t tell if you’re imagining the feeling of tightly-restrained panic. What’s to be _restrained?_ You passed panic and landed in _despair_ a very long time ago. “I don’t know. Remarkably, this isn’t a situation that comes up very often. You don’t have a doctor watching over this from the outside?”

“A mnemosurgeon.” He’s dropped the sarcasm entirely. The tone of his voice is all different, and in some ways, it’s even worse than the posturing was. The posturing is comfortable and familiar. This is… different.

“Then they can—”

But he’s already shaking his head. “In this case, I was told very emphatically than an external disconnect would almost certainly result in _two_ brain-dead mechs instead of one.”

Your wings ache. Your head too. All of you aches. “You need to pull out of the connection on your own? You’re not trained in mnemosurgery, are you? How do you know how to do that?”

He laughs once, short and sharp. “This was a risky procedure _before_ the unexpected developments came into play. I’ve heard the basics. All I need to do is figure out how it feels to apply them in practice.”

It’s all you can do to not burst into hysterical laughter. _All_ he needs to do. Without even accounting for Vigilem. “ Starscream. Why are you _here?”_

You don’t get an answer to that. But you weren’t really expecting one. Starscream dismissively flicks what’s left of his wings, and you can feel your own mirror the gesture before you stop them.

He asks, “How can I stop him?”

“I don’t know.” Your shoulders slump, and you see Starscream’s slump the slightest bit too, though he keeps his face controlled. “I have— Fail-safes, redundant relays. All cityspeakers have them added to their frames. Anyone who tries to merge with a Titan without them would just burn out their circuitry. But there are places my processor was reprogrammed, to help partition off my sense of who I am, to reduce the risk of losing myself in a merge.”

Starscream crosses his arms. You mirror him, though you feel more huddled than anything else. He says, “And I have none of that.”

You shake your head. “Vigilem wanted me to let him in. He was trying to wrestle it away from me. But I think with anyone else— He could just take what he wanted.”

You’re still halfway waiting for Starscream to flare up with anger. Every moment he stays subdued and quiet makes you more uneasy. It isn’t as bad as watching him relive that memory, but it’s still so uncomfortable seeing someone wear him down into this position.

Starscream gives you a flat look. “Spare me the pity.” He sighs and steps past you, pacing a few steps down the street. You turn to watch him and heave a sigh of your own. “Do tell, how will I know when he’s stolen control for good? Should I expect to evaporate away? Or perhaps it’s already done, and this is just the eternity I’m forced to endure?”

You hesitate. “I—”

“—Don’t know.” He doesn’t snap at you, or even put on a show of being annoyed. He smiles crookedly. “I must say, even as the alliance’s most knowledgeable expert on Titan possessions, you seem to be a little lacking in answers.” His smile doesn’t quite reach past his mouth and drops away entirely after a nanoklik.

You try to smile back. Starscream is joking, and that’s a novelty on its own, and a gesture he’s never extended to you. But your smile doesn’t have much more staying power than his.

There’s silence for a moment. Then you venture, “I think that pulling us into memories gives him some kind of power. Maybe leverage so he can work himself deeper, when we’re distracted and can’t focus on keeping him out.”

Starscream looks sharply at you for a moment, and then away, staring off over your shoulder into the distance instead. “So that little display?”

You stare at his pedes. You can feel anger and shame beating at you. That wasn’t really a question, and doesn’t need an answer, but you still burst out with, “If I’d just realized, I could have _stopped_ it—”

The words trail off into silence, because there’s. Really nothing else you can say. Starscream doesn’t reply. You drag your optics up to look at him, and now he’s watching you again. You can’t read his face. He crosses his arms again at the same moment you bring your arms up to hold yourself.

He finally sighs and says, “And gotten your circuits fried for your trouble, I suppose?”

You flinch. “I’m sorry—”

But he’s already waving you off. “I already know how the memory went. So do plenty of other people. I don’t suppose one more makes much difference.” He doesn’t even look upset as he turns away and moves down the street. Just… tired. You follow along behind him, so exhausted you can hardly bring yourself to hold up your wings. You don’t know what he’s expecting to find in a city that doesn’t really exist, but you can’t bring yourself to tell him to stop.

This is so unlike Starscream that it’s hard to look at him. It would be easier if he’d be angry with you. Something. _Anything._ You can’t shake free from the overwhelming feeling of shame.

Though you have to ask, “Not at your—”

“—Inauguration? No.” Silence. For a moment you think that’s all the answer you’re going to get. Then he continues, “Back—”

“—Near the end of the war,” you finish, nodding. Of course that was it. You don’t know how you could have forgotten.

You and Starscream both freeze at the same moment.

He spins to face you. “Out of my head,” he snaps. _“Now.”_

“Don’t be an idiot, you’re in _my_ head! You came in my head first. But what is this, what did you _do?”_

He stalks towards you as you move towards him, and you’re reaching out towards him without knowing why. Do you want to grab him, shake him, you don’t know— It all gets knocked out of your head the moment your hands touch his arms, and you’re bowled over by a sense of _correctness._ It’s so disorienting that you think you’re almost holding to him for support, and you only distantly realize he’s holding your arms in the same way.

You consider letting go of him, and are suddenly completely certain that this is the worst idea you’ve ever had in your entire life. _What._

Oh no. Something is wrong. Very wrong. You’re both being _changed,_ and there are thoughts that don’t come from you and _shouldn’t_ come from Starscream. But you can’t even feel yourself being altered, you can only feel the changes when you run face-first into them. You don’t know how to stop this. Your mind is being overwritten and you don’t know how to stop it.

You can see the same thoughts flickering over Starscream’s face. But even more than that, you can feel the same emotions bouncing back and forth between you.

“Bleed-over,” you manage. You’re proud of how steady you keep your voice. Not that it matters, when you can feel Starscream feeling your emotions. “There’s cross-contamination between our minds. This isn’t usual.” You mean that to be a statement, but it comes out as more of a desperate question.

“No,” says Starscream. As far as he’s ever heard, you can feel. You can also feel him going over and over every memory file that seems like it could be relevant, looking for explanations or answers. You’re doing the same with everything you ever learned about Titans. You’re getting flashes of rooms you’ve never seen, watching mechs you don’t recognize talking to you, or looking at familiar hands that aren’t yours on a console. Moments of your education are leaking over to Starscream too. He should be angry, at you prying into his past. And you should be keeping the secrets of Titan physiology, protecting them from someone who hasn’t shown that he can be trusted with them. Both of you shouldn’t want this, but it takes so much effort to remember _why_ you shouldn’t want it.

And neither of you has any answers. It’s terrifying to catch yourself thinking that it feels like you shouldn’t even need to talk to him anymore. You’re so much inside his thoughts that you can feel everything before he bothers to say it, and he processes your response the same way.

You jerk away from him when you realize. He’s pulling back too, but neither of you manages to get far before you’re forced to stop. Your chest rests against his, and you don’t remember when that happened. Your hands are still on his arms, his on yours, both of your frames pressed as close as you can manage. All that echoes back between your mind and his is _NO._

It’s horrible to even think about pulling away. But you also want to scream as you start to realize that you’re forgetting what it means to be just a single person. You force your left hand to drop from his frame. Your arm is shaking with the effort of it, but you manage to bring that hand to rest at your side.

You offline your optics, trying to brace yourself to move further away, but you can’t, you— You grit out, “Your turn.”

Even when you’re not forcing your own frame into motion, it still aches. Your legs almost want to buckle with how _wrong_ it is, but they can’t buckle, that would only push the two of you further apart.

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you take a step backwards, so your chest doesn’t rest right against his. Your servos seize up, and you nearly fall, and it’s so, so hard not to just collapse against him. You cling to his arm with one hand, and blindly stumble backwards.

Your processor is spinning, and Starscream doesn’t look—feel—much better. But when you finally manage to boot your optics up again, you feel more like an individual person again. You still each have one hand on each other. And you really truly don’t think you could manage to let go of him entirely, but now it feels less like you’re a single spark split across two frames, some new person who isn’t either of you, but is somewhere in between—

That’s uncomfortably close to what Vigilem has offered you so many times, and you can’t help remembering all those endless variations on your combined frames that he showed to you. You see Starscream make a disgusted face. “Really,” he says.

You sigh. “He’ll probably offer you the same.”

He snorts. “I’m already flawless.”

You can feel your awareness of his battered frame, _his_ angry awareness of his battered frame, various layers of vanity and external expectation-of-vanity, true pride along with furious, humiliated deflection, and it echoes so much back and forth between the two of you so much that you can feel your handle on your sense of self starting to slip.

Just barely, you manage drag yourself back into your own frame. “It’s getting worse,” you say. “More—”

“—Bleed-over,” he finishes. “And just to think, after I’ve spent so long doing my best to avoid the Enigma. But that means it’s not complete. So—”

“—We might still have time.”

You force yourself to take another half-step away from his side, and let your hand slide up to rest on his shoulder. He braces himself and you can see him clench his jaw, and he manages to do the same. You can feel his hand very slightly shaking with the effort of remaining this far apart, but you know yours is doing the same.

“A smaller connection,” you say. “No matter what hardware your mnemosurgeon is using, I doubt it has the transfer speed of a Titan’s cables.”

“Breaking it off mid-transfer. So the compromise between one brain-dead mech and two brain-dead mechs is… two half-brain-dead mechs.”

Still, he can’t hide the undercurrent of excitement he’s feeling. He isn’t even trying to hide it, not really. You can feel his mind racing, thinking through all the possibilities.

And you’re trying to follow along as well as you can, matching his ideas up against what you know about Titans and what you’ve experienced in here with Vigilem. But you don’t have much time left. There’s only one real option and you both know it.

“Disengaging from the connection,” you begin.

But Starscream hesitates. You’re starting to get impatient, waiting for him to go on, but then you feel—

“I am _not_ _discussing_ terms with you. Save me or don’t, but I’m not going to sit here arguing over pointless negotiating while Vigilem overwrites both our minds!”

He’s frustrated, but he isn’t disagreeing. Though he still hesitates, and says, “Elita.”

“Yes? What about her?”

“She isn’t admitting to Vigilem.”

It takes you a moment, because you’re stunned at the shameless dishonesty of it all. But Starscream doesn’t resist at all as you pick all the little details out of his mind. You’re exhausted again, right down to your spark, and you don’t know how much of that is coming from you and how much is coming from him.

And from those memories. Your hand tightens on his shoulder. “How could you agree to—?”

He doesn’t answer, only shrugs. You can feel the cold unconcern on the surface of his mind, but also the whole complicated tangle of thoughts and emotions driving it all from underneath.

At first, all you can say is, _“Primus.”_ You bury your face in your free hand. “What do you expect me to even do?”

He doesn’t even shrug this time. His thoughts are racing with more assessments and possibilities and plan after plan after plan. But what’s more shocking than anything is that driving every one of those plans is a solid, unwavering confidence in— _your_ abilities.

You don’t know what to say.

The moment is tense, and you don’t know how to move past it. But Starscream’s apparent strategy is to shamelessly pretend that nothing just happened and press on. Honestly, you’re grateful.

He says, “I collected information from a few mechs with mnemosurgery experience about how to pull out of another mech’s mind.”

You don’t ask whether it will work on waking up inside your _own_ mind, or whether it will work if you aren’t the person who initiated the mnemosurgery in the first place. You can already feel that he doesn’t know.

All you can do is ask, “How?”

The explanation Starscream gives is... technical. But you can already feel the simpler version floating in his mind, and by the time he’s done rattling off the medical terminology and jargon, you think you mostly understand.

Carefully, you say, “So if you can retreat back into your own processor. There’s a way to—?”

Starscream hesitates for barely half a nanoklik. “Trigger an external boot cycle.”

“That isn’t the usual process, is it? I mean, most mnemosurgeons don’t lose consciousness entirely. I thought.”

He sighs and rubs his helm. “If either of us was a proper mnemosurgeon, we’d know how to pull out of this more smoothly. As neither of us is in possession of that expertise, we’re left with what one of the mechs I spoke to insisted on referring to as an ‘emergency escape.’”

You have some _thoughts_ about diving into a situation like this, depending on that as your only way out. You don’t share them, because you can tell Starscream is feeling them as they go by, and he’s already flatly ignoring them. And he’s still here. He could have let you die, but with a plan like that, he came in here after you. And he’s ignoring that too.

You think very deliberately and clearly that he seems to have settled on ignoring anything inconvenient as his best strategy for dealing with this mess. He doesn’t answer, but you can see one corner of his mouth turn upward.

“That seems simple enough,” you venture. “How do you trigger the—”

And you never get a chance to finish that sentence, because Starscream leans into the connection, and you can _see_ the memory of the mnemosurgeon explaining it to him. Even once he pulls away, it sits in your memory banks. You don’t remember seeing Starscream’s memory. You remember the mnemosurgeon sitting in your office and carefully stepping you through each part of the process until you declared yourself satisfied.

“Vigilem is still moving,” you say.

“Yes, he is.”

“So we have to pull into our own processors—”

“Or you risk parts of you being left behind when the connection is broken. The reason this is intended to be an _emergency_ method only.”

You nod along, because that makes sense. And through Starscream, you can feel the concept… of remembering what it’s like to be yourself and _only_ yourself. Separating yourself from the feeling of being in another mech’s mind with them, focusing on the way to be yourself, alone, in your own head. And— Oh no.

“Yes,” Starscream agrees. You can hear the tension in his voice.

Your mind is racing, and you feel vaguely ill. What did it feel like to exist without Vigilem in here with you? And that’s not even all of it. When you can feel Starscream’s mind right there, right next to yours—How are you supposed to remember a time before this existed?

You’re trying hard to remember what it’s like to be yourself, and nothing _but_ yourself, but it’s so difficult. And of course, now that you’re trying to do it, all you can think of is the way you can feel his body overlay yours, the way you can feel the different lines of both your frames at the same time. The more you try not to think about it, the harder it is. The ache of Starscream’s injuries never left you, but now when you try to remember being _Windblade,_ that pain jumps to the forefront of your thoughts.

You try, and keep trying. It slips away from you every time. You can feel Starscream fighting against the connection too. You can feel his frustration. Sometimes it feels distinct from _your_ frustration, and you think you’re winning. But no matter how you separate your thoughts apart, the physical sensation never leaves your frame.

At one point, you catch yourself struggling to even believe half of your wing is still there. It is, you know it is. But it’s not, and you’re _sure_ of it. And you fight against the idea for as long as you can, but then you have to give in and look.

Starscream says, “Don’t.”

He’s right, and you know he is. Intellectually. But you still can’t shake the feeling that half of your wing has been torn off, and you can’t tear yourself away from the thought. You can feel the raw edges of your plating and the slight swing of hanging wires every time you move. It’s gone, it is. You wait until he seems distracted, and. You know it’s stupid. But you try to turn, slowly, just to be _certain_ your wing—

“ _Don’t.”_

You could just sob with frustration. “My wings hurt so much—”

“Of course they do. But we’re— _I’m_ used to this. It’s nothing unusual. It’s no excuse to stop.”

“We’re used to this?” Or. You mean. He is. You hate how small your voice comes out. And you can feel Starscream not wanting to be touched right now, and also hating the way the two of you _need_ to be touching right now. You only leave your hand where it is, on his shoulder, just enough to keep both of you able to think. But you can’t help the way your fingers curl against his plating.

Your spark is burning with anger, anger directed at yourself, at Vigilem, at everyone in the dream crowd and everyone in the real, remembered crowd. And especially at Megatron. Some of that is bleeding over from Starscream, but not all of it. The anger you feel towards yourself— That isn’t him. That’s yours.

The anger towards the others blends so smoothly between you and him that it’s hard to tell where your feelings stop and his begin. But the anger you feel towards yourself has to be yours, because as he looks over your emotions, you can _feel_ him examining them. The crowd, Vigilem, Megatron— He’s angry too. But in terms of your emotions, all you can feel from him is a dull, exhausted satisfaction.

“It wasn’t right,” you say. It’s hard to remember how to move, it’s hard to remember _why_ you want to be separate from him. You— think you’re separate people. You must have been once. You must _be._ In the present. It takes all your effort, but you steady yourself, and take a slow, deep ventilation. More firmly, you repeat, “It _wasn’t.”_

You can’t tell if you’re imagining the undercurrent of gratitude in his thoughts. You don’t have time to be sure before you take one last moment to brace yourself, tear your hand from his shoulder, and stumble backwards away from him.

It’s more disorienting than you could have imagined. The world spins, and you don’t make it more than a step or two before you trip and fall, landing painfully on your wings. Your optics go right to Starscream, and you can see him lurch after you, a single half step with his arm outstretched to you, before he pulls himself up short. Your hand is reaching out to him too, and you can’t manage to pull it back. You can’t speak, can’t think. You _need him._

You’re frozen for a moment, both of you, your optics locked. He shuts his down, and it— helps. Not much, but it helps. You can see his hand shaking, and then he grits his dentae and forces himself to take one step back. Then another. His legs buckle, and he goes to one knee.

But there’s space between you. It _hurts._ It hurts not being a single person. But it’s enough that you can remember that you aren’t a single person. It’s enough to remember why you need to be two people.

“Keep your optics off,” you tell him. “It helps.” You force yourself to shut yours down too. It’s easier when you can’t see him. Slow ventilations. “I’ll see you soon— Lord Starscream, duly elected ruler of Cybertron.”

He laughs once, short and strained. But you can hear the dry amusement in his voice when he says, “Cityspeaker Windblade.”

And then you force your attention inward. Being _yourself._ Being _only_ yourself. Remember. Remember Caminus, before you’d ever even attempted your first partial merge. The apartment and school and never knowing what it was like to be inside someone else’s mind and let them into yours. Even once you merged with fragments of Caminus, even once you merged with Metroplex, there was still always _Windblade,_ you remember what it’s like to be alone in your head, alone in your frame, you remember what it’s like to be _you,_ and there aren’t any words to describe it, because it’s only what existence _is—_

You don’t know if you’ve done this right. You don’t know if you’re going to wake up. But you reach into your processor, grasping blindly for the reboot protocols. You know where they are, Starscream— No, _you_ know where they are, _you_ know what you’re looking for. Just you. You trip something in your head, and the world around you winks out.

The next thing you’re aware of is a bright, indistinct smear of light. You try to struggle upright. Where are you? Is that sky? If you’re in the open, Vigilem could find you anytime, and you still don’t know what he can do if you don’t fight back.

But before you can even make it up to your elbows, there are hands on your shoulders, pressing you down. There’s a shadow, a _person,_ you can see them above you. You can’t make out any details, but you can see enough to know that those are lights in the ceiling of a room, and not the sun. Another shape leans over you, another person you can’t see well enough to identify. They’re talking. The room spins, and you can’t tell whether they’re speaking to you or each other, but you can’t make out a single word. Two pairs of hands push you down onto the berth, gently but firmly keeping you still, and once you stop trying to fight against them, the hands leave you and the mechs pull away.

You still feel dizzy, and maybe half-conscious at best. But there’s an insistent voice in your processor telling you that there’s someone you’re forgetting. Someone else. You’re forgetting someone. Your hand goes to the main port on the side of your head. You hardly remember what it’s like to move your body, and you miss the port twice before you find your mark. Someone is standing over you again, and you think they’re talking to you. There are words happening, but you can’t get them to make sense.

Your port is exposed, but empty. No Vigilem. Your fingers do bump up against other cables, branching from the base of your helm and lying flat across the berth before they disappear over the edges. You try to turn your head to see, and you probe at the little ports they’re plugged into, trying to figure out what all this is for. But as soon as you start feeling them out, the person above reaches down and takes your hand, pulling it firmly away.

By now, you can almost see properly again. You’re still struggling to focus, but you can at least make out the mech above you well enough to know that you don’t recognize her.

All you manage is, “Who—?”

Her lips are painted dark enough that you can see the way she smiles. “Airachnid. A mnemosurgeon, of a kind. It was my pleasure to oversee the little exercise that brought you back to us.”

The words make sense. You understand what she’s saying. But you can’t quite put the steps together to figure out how to manage actual conversation. You look up at Airachnid for a long moment, still dazed. Then you try, “There was someone else.”

She laughs. “Carcer? Or perhaps you mean Starscream? Don’t worry, the one ought to be gone, and the other is just now waking up. I’ll just go see how he’s coming along.”

Airachnid is gone before you can string your thoughts together. But no. Carcer is wrong. It’s Vigilem, of course. You need to be sure that’s clear. But you can’t shake the feeling that no, Carcer. There’s— a reason for Carcer. Why can’t you remember?

But. Starscream. You _do_ remember Starscream. He’s here? He’s waking up?

The world starts spinning again the moment you try to turn your head. You don’t care. At least you don’t have to turn far. You can see Airachnid’s back, just beside you. There’s another berth, close enough that you could almost reach out and touch it. And past Airachnid, you can see Starscream.

Your optics are working well enough to tell that the cables running down over the edge of your berth are the same as the ones that he’s plugged into. An exact match. You don’t know enough to pick out their exact function, but you can recognize at least the life support hardware.

It’s still hard to think past the fog in your head, but that’s important. You don’t know why, but you know it’s important. But before you can puzzle over that for any longer, Starscream moves. Slowly, his head turns, until he’s looking towards you, and the two of you lock optics.

You’re frozen like that for a long moment, until someone moves between the two of you, cutting off your view. You want to protest, but before you can string together your words, there’s a doctor bending over you, checking your vitals, measuring… You don’t even know what he’s measuring. But he’s quiet and gentle, and you dim your optics and relax back against the berth as you let him work. In between asking you nice, easy questions about how you’re feeling, he tells you that it’s an honor to serve, and how wonderful it is to see you on the pathway to recovery.

Past him, you can hear Airachnid talking to Starscream, not quite loud enough for you to make out their words. You can see him sit up, and Airachnid disconnects all the cables from his frame, calmly coiling them up and setting them aside. When your doctor offers you his best wishes again and turns to get her attention, she’s ready for you.

You still only feel half awake. But your optics are working just fine now. And you’re aware enough to notice the paint on her face.

You do manage not to react. You try telling yourself not to be stupid, that of _course_ plenty of Cybertronians and colonists choose to decorate their faces. Especially on Eukaris, it’s not unusual. But it’s so similar to the paint you’ve been seeing on Vigilem for so long that you can’t manage to look away.

Airachnid doesn’t seem to notice how tense you are as she helps you upright. Even when you feel her hands on the back of your neck and flinch away, she just laughs once, unconcerned, and asks you what’s wrong, are her hands cold?

She works on without waiting for an answer. Which is good, because you don’t have one. You just try to force yourself into relaxation as well as you can as she unhooks cables from your ports. She doesn’t seem to notice anything is wrong. But Starscream gives you a searching look that you do your best to ignore.

Once Airachnid finishes with you, she declares Starscream is free to go at any point. And declares that _you’ll_ need to stay for a few days longer to be sure there aren’t any lingering problems. You start to argue, but when you swing your legs over the side of the berth and try to stand, you… start to tip right over. Arachnid catches and steadies you, and neatly tips you right back onto the berth. It’s almost insulting how easily she did that. How long have you already spent lying here? You want to _leave._

You start to make your very convincing argument for why you deserve to _go home,_ but before you can say more than a word or two, Starscream cuts you off.

“I’m sure that Cityspeaker Windblade has no intention of going against the very sound medical advice you’re giving her,” he says. “I can assure you that she _will_ agree to remain here until doctors are certain she won’t suffer any unfortunate… lingering effects.”

You’re seething, you’re absolutely _seething,_ but he completely ignores you as he dismisses Airachnid. Cityspeaker Windblade needs to _rest,_ he’s sure, he just has a few last things to say before he leaves her to get some peace and quiet.

He escorts her out of the room. At least when the door shuts behind her, Starscream lets the stupid act drop. He turns back to face you without that fake little polite smile, and you’re certainly ready to give him a piece of your mind. But the moment the two of you lock optics, you’re hit out of nowhere with a sudden overwhelming _need_ for him.

Starscream feels it too. You can see the way his optics flare and he stumbles. You reach out your arms to him without thinking, and you need this, you need _him_ against you— And this is all wrong, this shouldn’t be happening. You’ve never thought these things before. He’s feeling this too, and he looks about as surprised as you feel.

He stops where he is, his optics still intent on you, but not moving. For a moment, you nearly try to slide off the berth again, and go to him. You stop yourself, but it takes an effort. You can see the tension in his wings as he stands there, frozen, watching you. You don’t think your wings are doing much better. What’s happening? This, none of this is right, and you don’t know what could be doing it.

“We’re still trapped,” Starscream says, quietly.

But you shake your head. No, you knew that space too well. This is different. Strangers. An environment that feels real and complete. “I don’t think Vigilem could do all this.”

“ _Carcer.”_ His voice is sharp. “As long as Elita has public opinion on her side, we can’t afford to let that slip. The colonial representatives know. But if the information makes its way to the general population by accident, she’ll be able to refute it without any real effort and discredit any future disclosures.”

“That was a bad idea,” you groan.

He looks away. “You were there. You saw why.”

You were. You did. You still disagree, and he knows that. And also why. The degrees of mutual understanding that have suddenly sprung up between you make your head spin. You don’t know how to handle this.

Starscream takes a single step forward, and those thoughts are swept away, you’re leaning towards him and reaching out a hand, and you don’t remember deciding to do that. He starts to reach out to you too before pulling himself short again. He hesitates, but forces himself to turn away and walks to stand on the opposite side of his berth.

His voice is tense and tightly controlled. “So what is this?”

You dim your optics for a moment trying to think. And the first thought that comes to you is, “A hardline. We should—” You cut yourself off. All you can do is stare at him, confused.

And you see him nod once, and he’s opening his mouth to agree, you know he is. But then he cuts himself off too, and both of you just look at each other, helpless and frozen.

Carefully, he says, “These ideas are—”

“—External,” you finish. His wings flick and resettle, and yours mirror the action before you can think about what that might mean. You try desperately to think of some other explanation than the obvious, but it’s so clear to you now what this must be. You try to keep the despair out of your voice when you say, “He isn’t gone. I’d hope that if we severed the connection mid-transfer, he would have been—”

“Dead.” Starscream’s jaw tightens. “Or at least weakened.”

Knowing what’s pushing you this way helps. But it doesn’t weaken the push. You can’t manage to look away from Starscream. Or stop thinking about how you want him against you like you were in the dreamscape, his frame pressed to yours and your hands on each other. Your cables linked up. The rush of _need_ when you picture that leaves you dizzy. And these aren’t feelings that you’ve put there yourself.

Starscream is looking at you with his face flat and blank, but his hands are locked tight on the edge of the berth. Experimentally, you lower your wings, and bring them in close to your body. He mirrors you, and you’re not sure he even realizes.

You try to keep the exhaustion from your voice when you say, “You want me.”

His mouth twists, but he doesn’t argue or lie. He only says, “And you want me.”

You dim your optics so you don’t have to look at him. You don’t know how to respond. Helplessly, you ask, “What are we going to do?”

He doesn’t answer.

There’s silence for a moment. You try to think through your options, just to keep yourself from lingering on the reality of your situation. And— You laugh, and it only comes out a little strained. “Well, we’d better get a hardline connection going right away, don’t you think?”

Starscream looks up at you, startled. Saying the words sends a pulse of _wanting_ through you, but it’s easier to ignore when you think of the idea as a joke. After a moment, he cautiously ventures, “Obviously. I never bothered to bring it up, because I assumed that was a given.”

Your smile isn’t very steady and his is only faint, but at least it’s something.

“There has to be a solution,” he says. You want to believe he’s right.

“We can find one,” you reply. He nods, even though he has no reason to believe you know any better than him.

After that, he leaves. What else are the two of you supposed to do? Stay here, alone, and ignore the clawing _need_ you both feel, while making no progress whatsoever?

No. Starscream leaves. You sit where you are for a klik, staring at the door, but nobody else comes in. You don’t have anything to do with yourself but lay back down on the slab. Instead of staring at the door, you can stare at the ceiling and listen to the little not-quite-voice inside you urging you to follow Starscream back to his quarters. You want to. But you don’t. You only stare at the ceiling, think of Starscream, and try to find some way to fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/163355349586/dancing-with-a-ball-and-chain-spockandawe-the)


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